LANGUAGES BECOMING FEWER.

Western Star, Issue 288, 15 March 1879, Page 6

LANGUAGES BECOMING FEWER.

As time g >es on the languages spoken in the world will steadily grow fewer. Three hundred years ago Cornish was beginning to disappear as a spoken language and similar fate is now being experienced by the Breton, ; u many respects a kindled dialect. A Breton sailor told a traveller that three generations of his family were alive—his father, who only spoke Breton, himself, who spoke French and Breton, and his son who only spoke French. So in Ireland every year the number of those speaking Irish decreases. Twelve years ago a tourist in Kerry met a well-dressed young man of the farmer class on the country road, of whom he asked some questions, which were answered very politely, but very little to the point. At length he said : “ Truth is, sir, I can speak very little English.’ Asking some well-to-do peasant women in Clare for some milk, they made signs for him to wait and called a man who interpreted, i'he risinggenerafci >n, however, nearly all spi ak English, except some on the wild Atlantic islands. In the Isle of Man it is as described in Breton. The Welsh, however , stick to their vernacular, and when you get into a rural dis;rict. in a county not c mtiguous to the English border, you might also as well be in Hu. sia.